I think that you misunderstand the spec situation Apple is in.
They have THE MARKETLEADING CPU, a very solid GPU and only the RAM with 1GB is actually a bad spec.

I don't think you understand that the iPhone is a spec monster in reality, apart from the RAM.
It offers the best real life multi-tasking experience, not just because the OS is optimised or because they are Apple.
No, they use the best mobile CPU money can buy, and one of the best GPUs.

To say that specs don't matter, or don't matter that much, is just wrong.
The iPhone 6/+ is basically the "living" proof, that specs are important.
Yeah, it's just a dual core, but it's a 64 bit dual core and it just destroys 32bit quadcores.
So of course spec matters and Apple plays in the spec war for quite some time.
They just took another approach, compared to Android manufacturers.

While Android manufacturers use more cores, Apple uses more bits.
It seems as though Apple's way was actually the right one, going by benchmarks and real life scenarios.

(I am the first one to point out how abysmal the specs in every BB10 device have been until the Passport. When I pay 600$ for a phone, then O expect top notch hardware and not some processor from 2 years ago because it saves BlackBerry money. The spec argument has 2 dimensions and most BlackBerry fans always try to ignore at least one:
1) Raw Power
Better specs mean more power. End of the story.

The iPhone only has 1GB of RAM and 2 cores less, while the resolution shouldn't affect those multitasking tests in a huge way.
You'd also see the iPhone 6+ perform basically the same way in the same test, even though it has to push more pixels than the 6. (it does bend though, so yeah :rotfl)

But it's not like your apologetic post would surprise me.
Everything that would prove and show (it's not like there isn't some empirical data out there, like the posted video) that Apple actually makes an excellent and multi-tasking phone, is something you can't accept.

It's OK though, we very probably all know that by now...

Posted via CB10

What makes you think it's the "more bits" vs more cores that makes it faster? That's not how CPU's work and most of the iOS apps are 32 bit. If you go and do some research you can find that when AMD brought out the Athlon 64 it wasn't the fact that it had "more bits" that made it faster than the Pentium 4. It was due to other architectural choices including the integrated memory controller, shorter pipeline e.t.c. Having more bits benefited maybe a handful of apps that were reprogrammed at the time. The major advantage of having "more bits" is in being able to address greater than 4GB of RAM. It also looks good on paper and can mislead folks who may not fully understand it's implications.

I think that you misunderstand the spec situation Apple is in.
They have THE MARKETLEADING CPU, a very solid GPU and only the RAM with 1GB is actually a bad spec.

I don't think you understand that the iPhone is a spec monster in reality, apart from the RAM.
It offers the best real life multi-tasking experience, not just because the OS is optimised or because they are Apple.
No, they use the best mobile CPU money can buy, and one of the best GPUs.

To say that specs don't matter, or don't matter that much, is just wrong.
The iPhone 6/+ is basically the "living" proof, that specs are important.
Yeah, it's just a dual core, but it's a 64 bit dual core and it just destroys 32bit quadcores.
So of course spec matters and Apple plays in the spec war for quite some time.
They just took another approach, compared to Android manufacturers.

While Android manufacturers use more cores, Apple uses more bits.
It seems as though Apple's way was actually the right one, going by benchmarks and real life scenarios.

(I am the first one to point out how abysmal the specs in every BB10 device have been until the Passport. When I pay 600$ for a phone, then O expect top notch hardware and not some processor from 2 years ago because it saves BlackBerry money. The spec argument has 2 dimensions and most BlackBerry fans always try to ignore at least one:
1) Raw Power
Better specs mean more power. End of the story.

The iPhone only has 1GB of RAM and 2 cores less, while the resolution shouldn't affect those multitasking tests in a huge way.
You'd also see the iPhone 6+ perform basically the same way in the same test, even though it has to push more pixels than the 6. (it does bend though, so yeah :rotfl)

But it's not like your apologetic post would surprise me.
Everything that would prove and show (it's not like there isn't some empirical data out there, like the posted video) that Apple actually makes an excellent and multi-tasking phone, is something you can't accept.

What makes you think it's the "more bits" vs more cores that makes it faster? That's not how CPU's work and most of the iOS apps are 32 bit. If you go and do some research you can find that when AMD brought out the Athlon 64 it wasn't the fact that it had "more bits" that made it faster than the Pentium 4. It was due to other architectural choices including the integrated memory controller, shorter pipeline e.t.c. Having more bits benefited maybe a handful of apps that were reprogrammed at the time. The major advantage of having "more bits" is in being able to address greater than 4GB of RAM. It also looks good on paper and can mislead folks who may not fully understand it's implications.

What makes you think it's the "more bits" vs more cores that makes it faster? That's not how CPU's work and most of the iOS apps are 32 bit. If you go and do some research you can find that when AMD brought out the Athlon 64 it wasn't the fact that it had "more bits" that made it faster than the Pentium 4. It was due to other architectural choices including the integrated memory controller, shorter pipeline e.t.c. Having more bits benefited maybe a handful of apps that were reprogrammed at the time. The major advantage of having "more bits" is in being able to address greater than 4GB of RAM. It also looks good on paper and can mislead folks who may not fully understand it's implications.

Everyone wants to relate this back to the particular history of PC's, but this is a different design with different constraints and very different effects as we go from armv7 to 64-bit armv8

Developers update their apps all the time. If they've updated their iOS app in the past year, they've gotten significant optimizations for armv8 whether they are aware of it or not. Apps spend much of their time calling APIs which have had 64-bit implementations in user devices for a year now.

Everyone wants to relate this back to the particular history of PC's, but this is a different design with different constraints and very different effects as we go from armv7 to 64-bit armv8

Developers update their apps all the time. If they've updated their iOS app in the past year, they've gotten significant optimizations for armv8 whether they are aware of it or not. Apps spend much of their time calling APIs which have had 64-bit implementations in user devices for a year now.

I'm not confusing anything, nor denying the FACT that Armv8 is an improvement over Armv7. I'm just stating the fact that it would be incorrect to think that being able to process 64bits vs 32bits at a time can be directly comparable to going from 2 cores to 4 cores which is what the post I was replying to seems to suggest. There are many other improvements to the architecture which would all add up to make it better and faster than its predecessor including better power management, smaller lithography, cache improvements and additional instruction sets and more. I'm deliberately downplaying the "64-bitness" in order to highlight that fact. Being 64-bit alone wouldn't do much because the software also needs to be 64-bit to take advantage of that. The comparison to PC processor architectures serve only as an example to support my specific point and it does a good one at that. x86, Arm all share certain principles in common. Please take your time to understand and also pay attention to the context.

What makes you think it's the "more bits" vs more cores that makes it faster? That's not how CPU's work and most of the iOS apps are 32 bit. If you go and do some research you can find that when AMD brought out the Athlon 64 it wasn't the fact that it had "more bits" that made it faster than the Pentium 4. It was due to other architectural choices including the integrated memory controller, shorter pipeline e.t.c. Having more bits benefited maybe a handful of apps that were reprogrammed at the time. The major advantage of having "more bits" is in being able to address greater than 4GB of RAM. It also looks good on paper and can mislead folks who may not fully understand it's implications.

Posted via CB10

iOS is a 64 bit OS now, and all the Apple made apps are 64 bit as well, so you definitely should see and feel a difference.

I don't disagree with you though, not only 64 bit is making the difference.
It's just the most obvious difference when you compare the different processors between Samsung and Apple at the first glance.
That the architecture is also different, is something I should have mentioned as well though.
Thank you for pointing that out.

That 64 bit allows more RAM than 4GB, but Apple only uses 1GB, while also using a 64bit processor, is an interesting design choice, isn't it?

Originally Posted by CyberMan2013

I'm just stating the fact that it would be incorrect to think that being able to process 64bits vs 32bits at a time can be directly comparable to going from 2 cores to 4 cores which is what the post I was replying to seems to suggest.
Posted via CB10

Never intended to suggest that those things are directly comparable in the way you mean.

Just that this is an obvious difference in the choice of playing the spec war.

Everyone wants to relate this back to the particular history of PC's, but this is a different design with different constraints and very different effects as we go from armv7 to 64-bit armv8

Developers update their apps all the time. If they've updated their iOS app in the past year, they've gotten significant optimizations for armv8 whether they are aware of it or not. Apps spend much of their time calling APIs which have had 64-bit implementations in user devices for a year now.

PC and phone processors are the same, a phone is just a small PC, and ARM works more or less the same as X86 processors, but are much simple architectures to designed to have great battery life. If you want, a ARM processor is just a much weaker processor, more cost and battery effective.

ARMv8 is a improvement because it has a more efective architecture that does more instructions per cycle than ARMv7. So if you made a version of ARMv7 32bit it should have the same performance of the 64bit version.

What they are doing by having 64bit coding early, is getting prepared for the future, and making the entire ecosystem run on 64bits, wich might help a lot when you have interactions betweem devices, because the code should be a lot more similar, wich could bring advantages in speed of cuminication between common apps between different devices inside the ecosystem

iOS is a 64 bit OS now, and all the Apple made apps are 64 bit as well, so you definitely should see and feel a difference.

I don't disagree with you though, not only 64 bit is making the difference.
It's just the most obvious difference when you compare the different processors between Samsung and Apple at the first glance.
That the architecture is also different, is something I should have mentioned as well though.
Thank you for pointing that out.

That 64 bit allows more RAM than 4GB, but Apple only uses 1GB, while also using a 64bit processor, is an interesting design choice, isn't it?

Never intended to suggest that those things are directly comparable in the way you mean.

Just that this is an obvious difference in the choice of playing the spec war.

Posted via CB10

I can understand that you never intended to suggest that those things are directly comparable but to the uninformed reader the way it appears might give that impression. I also understand that these topics are complex and sometimes we have to over-simplify to avoid writing a book when explaining. On the issue of Apple's strange design choice. That piqued my interest as well. I know that Apple is a company that "thinks" outside the box and very long term in many instances. They know how to phase in stuff in more elegant ways than many of their competition. Releasing 64-bit now gives them some specs cred. as well as it gives devs, API's and libraries enough time to gradually evolve and migrate to 64bit Architectures long before it is actually required due to Apps and the OS needing to address more than the 32-bit limit of 4GB will allow and whatever other limitations 32-bit Architectures would have for example floating point accuracy and stuff for when more and more professional, content creation type and workstation type of applications become more common place on mobile devices and also for when the mobile phone becomes an alternative to the desktop for work as well as play sometime in the not too distant future. If Apple and also others continues this trajectory of advancement it's not too far fetched to see ARM processors scaling up in performance to offer a workstation like experience and with Apple and MS releasing more and more of their productivity and content creation Apps and such large ecosystems of software available to the masses, I can see people being more and more comfortable doing tasks traditionally reserved for Windows PC's today on the Android and iOS devices of the future.

Like others have said, it's just nice to have a BlackBerry that competes lol. BlackBerry users have waited a long time to get a powerhouse phone and the PassPort doesn't disappoint. We don't need it to be class leading with its processor as long BlackBerry keeps the experience smooth with BlackBerry10. Hopefully having more processing power allows them to push BB10 even further

"Geekbench 3 scores are calibrated against a baseline score of 2500 (which is the score of an Intel Core i5-2520M @ 2.50 GHz). Higher scores are better, with double the score indicating double the performance."

Search for the threads in here where Apple was being destroyed because they didn't have more than 1GB of RAM in the iPhone 6. Specs mattered a whole lot then. They don't seem to matter so much now from what I've read in this thread. Interesting.

Apple should be better in their scores, its a custom ARM8 chip vs out of a bin ARM7 chip. Apple has a history of custom parts for its devices. Now if everyone was using an ARM8 chip set, it would be interesting to see how the Benchmarks would look. Been a while since I looked at the specs of ARM7 vs ARM8.

Benches are great, but real world usage is where devices shine. Apple has made a real world device people like. Passport so far is something people are buying into but is still at its 'burn in phase'. If the Passport gets the sticky 'like' benches won't matter (except to us geeks that like to know that stuff).

So I might be alone in this but I've had an iPhone for the past 2 years. I never had a Blackberry, however I do definitely see the pros of the OS. To be honest, I've watched a lot of youtube videos, take that for what you will, iPhone still beats bb10 when it comes to simplicity and design. That being said, I want a blackberry passport! The reason I want it is because literally everything is a copy of the iPhone form factor (design). It really all comes down to software if you're willing to sacrifice 2 mms on thinness / build materials.

The way I look at this is the battle between Microsoft and apple in the 90's. Microsoft won, debatably, because of price, compatibility of apps, marketshare, and backwards compatibility. Android and apple are basically having the same war nowadays, most app developers are trying to appeal to the biggest marketshares (iOS and android) meanwhile windows and blackberry are trying to find ways to stay relevant from an app perspective. Honestly, I hope one OS doesn't win out over the other because then that would be a testament to the fact that nothing has been learned in the past 20 years.

Anyway, my only argument is that even if you took away the apps, does blackberry really have the same quality of user experience to the other two os's? I would say it beats android 1 year ago, but does not beat IOS. I never, EVER, have to restart my phone. Seriously. And here's the other space where android/blackberry don't even come close, SUPPORT. Apple stores EVERYWHERE, I don't even have to a serious problem and apple stores will replace my phone. Blackberry and android will never have this benefit in the near future, Apple really is the king in retail. It's amazing really. You walk by any apple store and there are tons of people there everyday just checking out devices and getting their products fixed in less than 30 mins.

Actually, I don't have an argument. My problem is, how does blackberry answer the following questions:

1. Does blackberry have more bugs than IOs or Android?

I can tell you after owning just about every phone and used every OS out there that BlackBerry runs just as smooth as IOS. Runs much more smoother than Android.

Yes, if you need to get things done, BlackBerry devices are better suited for productivity. From the way the predictive text shows on the keyboard and you just have to swipe up to add that word to your sentence or when you made a mistake and just have to swipe left to clear the last word you've added. Swiping down switched from Alfa keys to numeric keys. It's a gesture based phone so you can be more productive.

3. Does blackberry support OTA updates as soon as they come out on all devices?

Yes and no, BlackBerry produces the OS but the carriers still need to approve them for mass distribution. Does BlackBerry. Have the capability? Yes they do.

4. Does blackberry provide support for their devices in close proximity for all owners?

Yes, in this world of FRU, you simply go to the carrier and swap out said device for a new one if it's available in the store.

5. Does blackberry really care about the consumer? If not, why not? Shouldn't all consumers be productive? (seems like a cop-out)

Of course they do, but the US market is brainwashed to think that BlackBerry is out of business.

6. If blackberry is not going to rely on handsets, is their software that much better? Blend is great! In the enterprise it's nothing really new, it's just that one provider is providing the solutions. Not so in the consumer world!

Bb10 is better than the competition simply because it supports anything thrown to it. Can't say the same about the competition though. Well, not to include Microsoft. BlackBerry Blend works with active directory and it's a secure solution. More than I can say to the competition solution.

7. Are blackberry handsets 'sexier' than anything else out there?

Define sexy? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Did you know BlackBerry. Has won awards for their devices.

8. Do blackberries provide comparable hardware and software from a consumer experience?

They do, Facebook, Twitter, linked in are all available for BlackBerry and work just fine on bb10. BlackBerry can support any app because BlackBerry incorporated just about every language known to make used for programing. Best example is the mere fact that BlackBerry can support android apps.

I feel like there is going to be a lot of disagreement in the top 8 questions..

No disagreements here. All 8 questions were answered. I just have one to ask though. The most important one if any.....

Are those other platforms secure? In the end, that's what more important.

iOS is a 64 bit OS now, and all the Apple made apps are 64 bit as well, so you definitely should see and feel a difference.

I don't disagree with you though, not only 64 bit is making the difference.
It's just the most obvious difference when you compare the different processors between Samsung and Apple at the first glance.
That the architecture is also different, is something I should have mentioned as well though.
Thank you for pointing that out.

That 64 bit allows more RAM than 4GB, but Apple only uses 1GB, while also using a 64bit processor, is an interesting design choice, isn't it?

Never intended to suggest that those things are directly comparable in the way you mean.

Just that this is an obvious difference in the choice of playing the spec war.

Posted via CB10

........but, tbh, you literally said that that "obvious difference" of using "64-bit" is the deciding factor. Or at least you made it sound like that. But AFAIR, Apple's combination of iOS and their ARM implementation was always that powerful in contrast to the competition, even before their 64-bit era. So?

GeekBench is great for the spec geeks of the world - but the problem is that all it does is give a phone's potential. I don't care about potential - I care how it works and if it performs when I need it to perform.

There is more to a phone that geekbench scores - how is the phone's reception (this is where BlackBerry excels)? How is the phone's battery life? How is the phone's software - is it buggy or laggy? How is the camera? Does the phone have useful hardware (like BlackBerry's LED)? Does the phone have useful software features (like Motorola's Active display and Touchless Controls?)

Is it really hard to compare different OSes - iOS and Windows Phone don't need a lot of RAM but BlackBerry and Android multitask and perform better with more RAM.

All fine and dandy do those who care about specs and I won't question what others find valuable. But specs got lost in the PC world long ago except for gamers. Very few buy the best available processor these days,or the fastest CPU and Video card. You can still build a PC for over $10K, but who here does? Some still do, but you can't even find high specs ay the Apple store, let alone any PC resellers. I build PC's based on needs. Just like I buy and recommend phones. Graphic designers need different specs than people who read email and watch YouTube. Functionality is critical and enough spec so you aren't waiting and both are unique to individuals. I need to write on my phone and I know many people on iPhone and Android and none make use of communication as effective as I do on a BlackBerry. iPhones work for those who want them. Nothing beats a BlackBerry for writing, and the big screen with keyboard is a functional change I appreciate, yeah Passport! It's not about spec alone. Hardware is more than spec. Battery life and OS integration and overall speed and app speed for what we are doing. My ears only hear so much, my eyes can only see so much detail, and my fingers only work so well. Anything beyond what I am capable of is wasted.